"closing bell." i'll see you tomorrow. thank you for watching. look for @mariabartiromo. "fast money" begins right now. it's all we've heard about since the election. >> fiscal cliff. >> fiscal cliff. >> fiscal cliff. >> fiscal cliff. >> but why doesn't the market care? let's find out right now. live from the nasdaq market site in new york city's time square, i'm melissa lee. here are tonight's top three trades. solving the apple mystery. want to know what's behind apple's troubles this week? we here at "fast" have gotten to the bottom of the selloff. we'll tell you what it means. plus, freeport fizzles. the fine print on why the company's two big buys are raising big red flags. and nat gas revolution, the government says exporting nat gas could be a game changer for america's economy, but at what cost? we'll take a deeper dive to find some answers. but first, our top story

tonight. everyone cares about the fiscal cliff, except, seemingly, the markets. just 25 days until the year end deadline and still no deal out of washington. still stocks quietly climb higher. the dow closing today at a one-month high. what gives? just an assumption that a deal -- >> it almost gets back to that you never short. we're all waiting for some type of closure on the fiscal cliff. so everyone's afraid to take that stab in the dark and say, you know what? things look terrible. no matter how they paint the picture, things look slower in the next couple of quarters than they do right now. am i right? >> yeah. >> so global growth, you have everything coming in, global growth is going to be terrible. growth here around 2%, 2.5%. so people want to short the market, they're just so afraid to because every time they short it, it bounces right back. >> and it seems now with headlines, the markets don't seem to react. we had tim geithner yesterday saying, absolutely, we're

willing to go over the fiscal cliff no reaction from the markets today. >> there's going to be a compromise. and they're afraid to get caught short. even if it's a short-term sort of thing. to me, in a lot of ways, if you're looking at the totality of the broad market or major indexes, they're not moving a whole heck of a lot. the vix moved up last week, it was showing near term protection buying. but at the end of the day, they're not moving a whole heck of a lot. people do not want to be caught short. >> 16 1/2 on the vix, that's not high. >> that's not solving a lot, but i can't remember the last time, by the way, grasso, that stab in the dark was a good thing. >> it was that time in college you told me about. >> not this kind of show. >> as far as the markets, though, i think people believe, indeed, both sides are willing to go off the cliff, melissa, but they don't believe we are

actually going to see dramatic changes, except to those top wage earners. everything is more or less laid out, it's going to be a kick the can. probably the baby grand, not a grand deal. nothing really done until the middle or end of 2013. >> how about you, karen? do you think we're sort of discounting this at this point? >> we seem to be. although i was looking back today at the volatility index last summer when we faced a similar situation and it was bouncing around the teens and low 20s and then things unravelled. as we saw. and volatility index went up to 45 briefly. so i just cannot believe that we are not going to see some hiccup between now and the first of january. i find that hard to believe. so i'm a little bit cautious. i do have some buying powder dry that i will spend if we see an ugly tape. >> you find yourself coasting into the end of the year? i find with my clients that a lot of people are slowing it

down. either you're up right now or down slightly, but you're not willing to screw it up or not willing to make that hail mary pass going to year end. if everyone's floating in, single stock stories, yes. but people are not playing huge. it's more important than ever to know all of your individual stories. >> right. well, we've got to get to our next guest because he is brave, a very brave man, in fact. buying right into the cliff and looking at a stock that would be directly impacted if we don't get a deal. let's bring in the head of global equities at pimco. highly leveraged to an area that would face sequestration and a consumer that could be constr n constrained. >> thank you for having me. general dynamics is one of our core holdings. we've owned it for a while. a great defense company. on top of which you're getting one of the best ultra luxury good manufacturers in gulf stream at the same time. as you all have been talking about, we think at the last

possible moment after republicans and democrats have exhausted every other alternative, they'll do the bare minimum and kick the can down the road on most of it. we don't think sequestration is likely to hit. we think general dynamics business is a good business, a lot of exposure to emerging markets outside the u.s. their tech service business is doing well, even the combat and marine divisions we think will be more resilient than people are giving them credit for. and they've got a blue chip balance sheet, strong balance sheet, strong cash generation, around 10% free cash flow yield and ten times earnings right now. so we like long-term fundamentals. again, we think that republicans and democrats will kick the can down the road. and, remember, the fiscal cliff is not really a cliff. even if we come to january 1st, it's more of a hill and they actually have a little bit more time than people are giving them credit for. and that's why i think the markets are not overreacting right now. >> there's this notion that you can go over the cliff and sort of go back, grandfather it in. but at the same time, for a

company like general dynamics, at what point do you start getting concerned it will, in fact, at least impact that quarter? >> well, that's a good point. it certainly could impact the quarter if it goes for weeks or months, absolutely. and i think maybe even the bigger factor is i think you talked about it which is there will be volatility as we approach the cliff and go over the cliff. even if it's a few days or few weeks. there will be a lot of volatility in the markets. that could be buying opportunities for all of us that have some dry powder for which to deploy. we tend to be more long-term holders. we tend to buy stocks and hold them for years rather than weeks and months. and for us, general dynamics is a good long-term holding because we don't think that defense spending cuts are coming any time soon. >> let me ask you something, do you then look at gd as already pricing in a bad-cased scenario. is that why it's attractive here? >> well, we think it's somewhat

pricing, and again, somewhat pricing in the fiscal cliff. even absent the fiscal cliff, we've known for a while, before concerned about the fiscal cliff arose. the fact there are those concerns right now makes us even more optimistic on the story long-term in terms of a buying opportunity now. and we're watching what's happening in washington very closely as all of you are. again, republicans and democrats, we don't have a lot of confidence they can show real leadership and solve our long-term structural challenges. but we think at the last possible moment they'll do the bare minimum and that means kicking the can down the road. >> neil, if i expand this out and can i buy a lockheed off of this? should i get back into utilities? because all of these charts look the same. they bottomed out when the market bottomed out. and now looks like everyone has discounted fiscal cliff and looks like it's back to business already. should we be buyers of everything then? >> well, we're being selective

in the names we're buying. not just broadly buying the market. we think, you know, stock market overall is reasonably priced, but we're not seeing big catalyst from here. so we're being selective on a name by name basis. we are buying dividend stocks around the world. we tend to prefer stocks outside of the u.s. not as rich as inside the u.s., the traditional dividend sectors. and the dividend stocks abroad will be less vulnerable to taxes going up because more of their shareholders are not exposed to tax rates. it's a name by name basis and we like in part for its own defense business but also gulf stream is a very attractive asset that has a lot of exposure to the emerging markets with a big backlog. >> wondering, in terms of whether we go over the fiscal cliff. he says if we go over the cliff for even a matter of two months, we could see unemployment tick as high as 11%. and even though you're a

long-term investor, at some point, you may look at the macro environment and say it's time to reduce some positions, at what point do you reach that tipping point? >> that's a great point. i'd be very sproized if two months resulted in an unemployment increase from 8% to 10%. i find that hard to reconcile. if we go over the fiscal cliff and there's no deal for the course of the year, we will absolutely be in another recession, no question about that. but going over the cliff for a month, it will hurt confidence, it will keep businesses on the sidelines, investors on the sidelines. it will hurt the economy. it's not a good thing, don't get me wrong. but going from 8% to 11% for one or two months fiscal cliff, that sounds extreme. i think if there's absolute gridlock in washington -- and right now washington seems to be on another planet. all of us in the markets, people at home, people in the country want republicans and democrats to work together. everyone seems to want that except for republicans and democrats. if they really are as far apart as they seem at times, we could

shoot ourselves in the foot. >> i think most of us wish that washington were on another planet. and that we could just take the whole group and ship them there. since we can't do that, however, i think if we do get two weeks or a month worth of argument that results in the fiscal cliff being -- that we fall off the cliff, then you are going to start seeing layoff notices and the rest. fortunately, i would say we're going to accelerate that unemployment and the job loss, unfortunately, if that happens. and that's going to result in warnings going forward from all the major industrial companies, as well. that's what i hope washington is listening to, and that's why i hope they turn away from that. >> absolutely. i agree completely. i was debating the magnitude, 8% to 11% than the direction. we're hopeful, we're hoping that this does not take what happened in the t.a.r.p.

remember, the house voted the t.a.r.p. down the first time, and then congress got the message they needed to act on behalf of the u.s. economy and the american people. we absolutely hope it does not come to that. every business leader across the country, small business to large business is telling washington both the executive branch and the congress come together in a bipartisan manner and get a deal done. everyone's saying it, for some reason don't seem to be hearing it. >> we've got breaking news. the breaking news here concerns netflix. received on december 5th a notice regarding a violation of regulation fair disclosure. that's what we know right now. take a look at netflix in the after hours session. we are seeing them trend lower. notice for netflix ceo reed hastings. >> trade it? >> yes, trade it. >> this is good news for icahn. they put the poison pill in

place and you've got hastings, the founder out there, who is obviously opposing that sort of activist investor. if they don't have -- doesn't say anything. says something about not improper trading of the stock, we don't have the details yet. but if it was anything serious, he'll be out of there, that's good news for a guy like icahn. >> if we see a pullback, do you get in to netflix now it has this deal? >> i like the deal with disney a lot for the disney properties which will include, of course, "star wars" and a whole bunch of the animation things at pixar. if they hold the line on subscriber costs, the monthly subscription for the online, then i think it's a boost for them because that pay wall or that wall got a lot higher to get over for everybody else that competes with them. as far as this, i wonder if it might not be, melissa, communications to a group of analysts, which would then fall under that fair disclosure if

hastings and/or netflix officials did speak with a group of analysts rather than releasing to the world in general through a press release or other. >> right. again, it's for violation of fair disclosure. we don't exactly know what it is. >> looks like looking like a little bit more detail. and you might remember this is citing in july where reed hastings put on facebook they had -- >> and we said it was odd. how odd is that? >> apparently the sec found it more than odd. they found it to be in violation of their fair disclosure, and then hastings here is making the argument of, you know, on facebook, that was very broad, public detail. so he didn't view it as -- he viewed it as telling the public all at the same time. so it looks like he's trying to get out in front of it and said this is what i did. i didn't view it as a selective disclosure. that was a mistake. >> right. >> and i'm sorry.

>> yes. going back to the facebook post. remember, that is the day the stock jumped 13% after hastings posted on facebook that the company saw record 1 billion streams in the month of june. that's the pop in the middle of the summer. it'll be interesting to see how this turns out because this will really determine how companies choose to share information with the public and whether or not something like twitter or facebook constitutes fair disclosure in this case. >> it's a whole new world. >> yes. >> i think start to look at these things a lot different than the way they once did. and i think it's going to be a learning experience for everybody. it just matters about how flexible -- >> and where people basically release through pr news wire. wipe wouldn't facebook qualify as fair disclosure if, indeed, anybody can get on there and see it? >> right. let's go to julia boorstin in l.a. for more on this story. julia? >> reporter: melissa, we just

spoke to netflix and asked them if they had additional comment. and what they pointed us to is the attachment of the filing exhibit 99 1-a, in which he said we used facebook to communicate with our members. basically saying they do treat speaking to facebook as speaking to the public. and he goes on to explain what's going on saying in july he posted on facebook to over 200,000 people who subscribe to reed hastings highlighting the strength of the content. and he explains what's going on here, the sec staff informed them yesterday that they're recommending that the sec bring a civil action against them for that july 1st billion hour post. saying in that post, he violated reg fd. hastings goes on to say that he thinks posting to over 200,000 people counts as public since many of those are reporters and bloggers and they don't currently use facebook and other

social media to get material to investors and they do that separately and there's a lot of conversation about how they approach this. and he says hastings' final note. while the stock increased, the increase started well before my mid-morning post was out, likely driven by the citigroup report. hastings is saying the stock did not jump as a result of the facebook post but because of other factors and saying that this is a public way to communicate with people who are interested, but is not the only way he communicates. >> julia, did you say the post reached 200,000 users or 2,000? >> 200,000. >> okay. >> so hastings has 200,000 followers on facebook. these are not friends. if you and i were to sign up to be friends, other people would not be able to see our posts. but he's a public figure, and you can sign up to subscribe to his posts. >> i asked about 200,000 because you have to wonder if you choose

to use another channel, which is regularly considered right now as fair disclosure, let's say a newspaper or a tv channel and they don't reach 200,000, you know, what -- >> you go to a conference. >> and at their disclosure, how many people does that reach? >> he knows better. he knows better. that's a lame excuse that the stock already started rallying, there was 40% interest in this stock when he said that. it doesn't take a whole heck of a lot of good news to get this stock going higher. >> you either violated or you didn't. >> it's certainly not like an insider trading situation. this seems like a slap on the wrist at best. >> they have to evolve. the sec has to evolve. >> yeah, again, catch up with the times. reed hastings has received a wells notice from the sec for violations of regulation of fair disclosure. we're tracking the story throughout the evening. coming up next, the mystery behind apple's selloff.

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welcome back to "fast money." apple shares closing a bit higher today, but the pressure of the last few days taking its toll on the stock. since its peak in september, apple's market cap has shrunk by $146 billion. it's a huge number, and easy to flippantly tossed around, but apple's loss is equivalent to the value of some notable large companies, in some cases, multiple times the value of some of our favorite household names. since it's holiday time, our theme is 12 days of christmas.

here's what that $146 billion is worth. 12 hershey's, 11 mattells, nine macy's, eight dells, seven kellogg's, you could get five fedex, four price lines, two nikes, two ebays and one bank of america, i'm not sure how many partridges and pear trees it would be, but it would be many. a few more to show you the scale of the loss. from the close on monday till now, slightly bigger than one morgan stanley. and yesterday alone, $35 billion was wiped out out of the s&p 500, 417 companies have a total market cap lower than what apple lost in just one day. melissa, back to you. >> thank you so much, jackie. well, many were questioning the steep selloff at apple in the past few days. we at "fast" have solved it. joining us now on the fast line

with more is tavis, great to speak with you. >> good to be here. >> these comments came a couple of days ago. and what's curious to me is that u.s. sales for apple just accounts for a fraction of total sales, why would what at&t says have a major impact on the stock overall? >> i'm not sure that was the reason the stock was down specifically yesterday. it was one of the many reasons cited. but i think it was misinterpreted by a lot of media outlets, at&t basically said their smartphone sales would be flat year-over-year, which on the surface sounds bad, but that's better than what most were projecting. and at&t had such a big iphone 4s quarter last year and some of those iphone 5 sales slipped into the september quarter this year. so if you look at what at&t is going to sell for iphones for the full second half of the year, still pretty strong 20% growth at at&t by the time it's

all said and done. >> aside from that, tavis, what is the biggest driver? >> well, i think it's two selloffs. one was from kind of the 700 top, and i think that was mostly, you know, i think that one is valid. it is -- this stock has fundamentally changed from a truly exceptional 30, 40, 50% grower with substantial upside in most quarters to one that's, you know, more of a typical growth company. 15%, 20% top line growth, great business, but kind of not what we see in the last five to seven years, and i think the market's digesting that. >> tavis, here's the thing, right? to me, apple has been a trade the whole way up and whole way down. just as we know it might have overshot back in september, it clearly has the potential given the concentration and positioning of the name to overshoot on the downside. one of the things i find very curious, the buy side was ahead of this. they started selling back in september and october and they are not the ones panicking here. i think it's retail to a large

degree, but you also have selling -- the street is overwhelmingly positive on the name. are we going to spend 2013 listening to probably 50 or 75 analysts defending their $800 price targets and buys? >> we could as long as the numbers keep oncoming in. i think, you know, the reality is that this is the issue. everybody still wants this company to be so extraordinarily special and have new products every quarter and some major catalyst that creates, you know, monster upside. but the numbers are too big now. this is $150 billion plus business. you know, it's hard for them to move the needle and grow 50% like they could three or four years ago. but the reality is, the fundamentals here are really good. even at $700, this wasn't like a situation where rimm had 150 a few years ago and trading at 35 times earnings. this was a relatively cheap stock on a p/e basis. never got extraordinarily expensive on an earnings basis. and for that reason, i'm not a big believer that we're going to see substantial downside from here. >> thanks for your time.

now, one of the concerns about apple is lack of visibility in terms of its product pipeline. when will the new product come? how about apple tv, for instance? well, actually, in an interview with brian williams which airs tonight on nbc's rock center, tim cook says when i go into my living room and turn on the tv, i feel like i've gone backwards in time by 20 to 30 years adding it's an area of intense interest. i can't say more than that. is he tipping his hat to apple tv coming to your living room some time in 2013. >> and it's not just intermediating the cable providers or the dish networks and all the rest, although they will do that. i think successfully. because once you have that wi-fi signal, you're going to be able to contract directly with major league baseball, football, whatever it is. >> samsung has a lot of that contact already. if you want to talk about

samsung phone from iphone, look at the samsung televisions. >> sure. >> you've already got those cameras and waving your hand and kids are playing games on it, apps on it. there might be another battle. >> snapshot into the grasso living room. >> people waving at frames on the wall. >> let's check in with jane wells with a look at what's coming up next. hey, jane. >> reporter: hey, you've got workers, campers, we call them work campers. how one online retail giant is helping the brick and mortar economy in one nevada town when we come back. platform from charles schwab... tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 gives me tools that help me find opportunities more easily. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 i can even access it from the cloud and trade on any computer. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and with schwab mobile, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 i can focus on trading anyplace, anytime. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 until i choose to focus on something else. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 all this with no trade minimums. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and only $8.95 a trade. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 open an account with a $50,000 deposit, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and get 6 months commission-free trades. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 call 1-866-294-5411.

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welcome back to "fast money." here's a breaking story we've been following all evening. netflix ceo reed hastings has received a wells notice as of december 5th, for violation of fair disclosure. a posting on facebook back in july in which hastings wrote that netflix saw a record 1 billion streams in the month of june. that day the stock rose 13%. also that day, herb greenberg raised a red flag. herb joins us now on the phone. herb? >> melissa, it's a time when i mentioned this. i remember we were joking that

nobody really seemed to care. the sec never did reg fd violation citations and this seemed so obvious, but no one really seemed to give a hoot at the time. but it just, you know, here you had a situation where he was disclosing stock-moving information, and he was -- you could argue he was sort of pushing the limits of what's real disclosure and what isn't. >> at the end of the day, herb, we're seeing the stock in the after hours session essentially do nothing at this point. why should we care? why should investors care? >> well, look, i think investors should care because they want to have equal access or as close to equal accessed information as possible. in the scheme of things as this relates to netflix, it's not a big deal. this, look, netflix you really care about the business. this is going to be a slap on the wrist. but i think more importantly, melissa, for investors, hopefully this pushes the sec to finally do something and say, hey, when it comes to disclosure, here's the role

social media plays. and just today, someone e-mailed me and said, elane musk put something out on his twitter feed. increasingly you're going to have these until somebody says you can or cannot do this. >> hey, herb. it's karen. i agree with you that the rules need to evolve. but as a shareholder in general, i'm far more irritated with the hypothetic hypothetical, this has not happened, but let's say he called three of his friends and say we're going to have xy fantastic earnings, and they buy the stock, and they don't move the market at all and buy stock and the next day the stock goes up when they announce great earnings. as a shareholder, that's far more offensive of me. that's more of a violation than him posting to 200,000 people and i maybe wasn't one of them. >> well, karen, you make a great point, except, if once you're disclosing something about the

number of subscribers or however many hours, it starts with that. how far do they start pushing it until there's really something substantive that you wished you had seen along with everybody else. >> all right. herb, great points there. thanks for phoning in. we appreciate it. herb greenberg. well, from mobile devices to medical marijuana, we've got you covered. out west, jane wells with a special edition of the west coast wrap. >> yes, delivering my own wells notice. there's a subculture where people in their rvs move from spot to spot at the national parks or in this case amazon. the company's hired an estimated 400 seasonal workers. part of the 50,000, it's said it's hired all over the country. ironically, some of the temp workers at amazon camp across the street at walmart. but most are scattered among 31 rv parks in a 20-mile radius.

amazon pays some or all of their rent in some areas. and in an area recovering slowly, they are good for business. it's boosted his sales 10% to 15%. >> without amazon, you know, the whole city would be in trouble. >> reporter: all right. who are these work campers? a lot of older people, retiree jim melvin is 68 and walks miles to the amazon warehouse every day to shipping items to ship. they love this on the road lifestyle and the people they meet. >> the hard part is i'm done in two weeks and i have grown to know a lot of cool people. and i'm really going to miss them. >> they're fun. they're really -- they're really a lot of fun. you see the same people. >> what do you do for fun? >> sleep. >> so you work how many hours a

day? >> right now we're working 11 1/2. >> and what do you do in your time off? >> sleep. >> i sense a trend here. the pay is about $12 an hour, plus o.t., which is better than rivals they say. sharon wants to use her earnings to fill her winnebago. >> wow, get a look at my amazon packages in a whole new light. you asked somebody what they did for fun in nevada. didn't you just recently do a story about a brothel in nevada, as well? is there -- >> yes, i did. the mustang ranch is just about ten minutes down the road. i didn't see any amazon workers there at that point. when i visited. >> how would you know? >> i don't know. never mind. >> they didn't have their tags on them. >> see you tomorrow, jane wells. all right, amazon, retail play for the holidays or

elsewhere? karen? >> i mean, great company, love it as a customer, cannot possibly get close to it at this valuation. >> is there any time -- it's always the same thing. karen would never buy it. >> you know that, it's not -- >> right. >> you can't come to grips with buying it. >> i wasn't close to buying it is when i decided. >> it still continues to defy all laws and people when they sit in front of their computers, smartphones, it's increasing. you sit there, shop, monetize mobile. that's the key, you want to be a buyer of that. i'd rather buy amazon than any of the other retail names. >> really? >> yes. before you fast fire me next week. next on "fast," is the u.s. on the verge of a nat gas revolution? why the impact on prices may not be what you think. more "fast" straight ahead.

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welcome back to "fast money," we are live at the market site in time square. could nat gas exports boost the u.s. economy? a new report from the energy department says natural gas prices won't rise with export expansion and revenues from the move could actually benefit americans. the findings helping to boost companies proposing export

projects like energy. several members of congress oppose large scale exports. so is the boom imminent? let's bring in a cnbc contributor. dan, in terms of the impact on prices, you would think that with the glut here the ability to send it off overseas would provide some support for this market. >> it will. the problem is there's enormous lag time between the time you get a chance to permit and the time you can start exporting. it's usually four years at the minimum. also anywhere -- well, if you're taking, for example, a plant where you're turning it from an import plant to an export plant, that's cheap, only cost you $2 billion. but if you're trying to start from scratch and build an export l & g plant, that can cost you $10 billion. very heavy money going in, very heavy infrastructure and a big bet on that differential on natural gas between here, the uk, and japan staying low for a very, very long time. >> you think prices are going to

remain low at least for now simply because it takes so long? it's the bureaucratic process, the time it takes to build the terminal. but once they're all in full gear, then what? >> i'm a big fan of the sequester and the rig counts dropping, building a floor here in natural gas. i think we've seen it through 2012, you're going to continue to see it through 2013. this is one more piece of the puzzle that builds a floor under there. i know it's a long-term kind of build of a floor that's going on, but you've seen the lows of natural gas for the rest of your lifetime. >> firming up pricing eventually down the road. we've seen this year and last year so many plants converted from coal to natural gas. with more and more plants using that. i guess, which back in the meantime, it's going to take so long. but let's say they stay. will americans -- could americans see higher, you know, energy bills? >> oh, yeah, no doubt about it. the differential has gotten crazy, but it's been crazy for so long, people have gotten used

to it. but i haven't. i remember 2005, 2006, 2007, not where we are now which is 35. and i think we're going to be back there again at some point. natural gas is the kind of commodity. it has a tremendous volatility attached to it. i think once you get some of this leasing action under control where it's not all haphazard everywhere and you get control on exactly how much is being produced, you're going to get a floor, you're going to see $5, $6, $7. the futures don't show that yet. even know for 2020, you've got futures prices only around $5 on mmbtu. but if you were a natural gas guy and tried to make a plant, you would buy all you could out there, but there's no volume out there. what you have is a disconnect between where i think they're going to go -- >> are you ever going to run out of gas? because i have a quick question. >> sure. >> never run out of gas. >> that's where i've been since about $12.50. but as you said before, the process takes so long for this to happen that should i stay in l & g?

and number two, real quick, because we're running out of time, chesapeake, it's made for a world for nat gas is $5. do you buy chesapeake? is it still headline risk? and do i stay in l & g? >> i think it's overhyped a little bit. they're taking advantage right now. they're the only ones able to take advantage of that l & g revolution, i like it better at 10 than i do 14. >> they have a plant, they have an import plant in maryland, but once they get approval, they're on the list to get approval, they can turn that around in two years and it'll take them $2 billion to turn it around. and in terms of chesapeake, i liked other plays better. southwestern, cana, ultra if you want to take a speculative play. >> and as we head to break, we want to remind you tonight to be sure to tune in to cnbc's sports biz. for decades, scott boris has been making markets and raking in millions for his clients.

why the power agent has the touch. next on "fast," yahoo up more than 25% in three months, do you hold it or fold it? and cisco meets analysts tomorrow, but you've got the trade tonight. stay tuned. sit back. [ male announcer ] when gloria and her financial advisor made a retirement plan, they considered all her assets, even those held elsewhere, giving her the confidence to pursue all her goals. when you want a financial advisor who sees the whole picture, turn to us. wells fargo advisors.

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cisco will hold the annual financial analyst conference tomorrow. mike khouw has the trade. what have option holders doing ahead of that activity? >> we've seen a lot of activity in the weekly 19 1/2 calls. they've traded about 12,000 contracts earlier today. a cheap bet, about 8 or 9 cents to make a bullish bet, the stock's above $19.59 by tomorrow. >> you like cisco, dan? >> well, here's the thing, the way mike laid it out, volatility has been low since they reported earnings last month. better than expected. this is one where the people have gotten in front of this analyst meeting hoping they were going to confirm some of the good news they recently got. a lot of call buying like mike said. starting to see some people come out of it. a lot of good news in the stock. sometimes it's tough to buy the losers and sell the winners.

let's play a little hold them and fold them. first we've got yahoo hitting another 52-week high, shares up 20% from a year ago. you've been watching this for a long time. >> i have. and the long-term on this name has been $19.50. i met you on the show a couple of times. it has to confirm that level, hold this level. what you want to do is watch the stock. if you want to buy it here, nibble. i'm talking about 10% to 20% of whatever position you want to establish in the name. make sure it holds the $19.15 level. so right here, i know it's a game. i'm sort of saying hold it, but i'm not really sure. >> i like -- >> it's got to hold $19.15 for about two or three days before i would really start loading the name. >> i like the hand gesture. plus you furl your brow. >> so cute. exactly. >> but in terms of the next catalyst with the stock, what is it? i feel like we're in a no man's land. >> everyone's talking about it

forever now. the way they're growing, the way they're paying for content. they have to really drive -- they get a lot of clicks, but i'm not really sure. this is just a specific technical call, not unlike the bank of america call where $10.11 was the breakout resistance level. and we saw it hit that. so i think yahoo has a lot of room. >> you nailed it. >> thank you. >> i'm just -- >> so much. >> that was a little awkward. next up, up 55% year on year. >> this is one that makes me more nervous than yahoo does, believe it or not. just because of the negotiations that are going on in washington. again, i'd like to ship these guys off to another planet, they're not going to go, and instead, this is one of the things that could be slightly at risk because of a pushout. we already know this is not going to kick in the affordable health care act until 2014. but any push or any give and take that happens there could cause this one to correct back down into the 26 area. so i'd hold off. >> so you fold them.

>> i would fold this one. >> not hold off. that's entirely confusing. fold them. next on "fast," think it's too late to get in on the special dividend frenzy? you might want to think again. we'll tell you why as we take your tweets next. [ male announcer ] trading's like a high-speed train. and you don't want to miss it with thinkorswim by td ameritrade. you get knock-your-socks-off tools, simple one-click orders, real-time paper trading to hone your skills, plus anytime you need it support. ♪ stocks, options, futures, and forex. get your trading on track. thinkorswim by td ameritrade. trade commission free for 60 days, plus get up to $600 when you open an account.

all right. we got rid of the curtain. the curtain was getting a little tired. we've got to the vault. so let's see what the trade of the day is. >> so costco, you know, there was a lot of buying since they announced november 28th, i think, it was $7 special dividend. the stock made a new all-time high. the stock was up 26%. i bought some december 105 puts yesterday, some more today, the stock paid -- the dividend came out of the stock. the stock was $7 lower, now i own the 98 put. the company reports on december 12th. and there's a lot of good things that have to happen on this call to keep these lofty levels. >> i want to slow it down a little bit. but to be clear, we revealed what's behind the vault. we put an "x" on it.

you're saying the stock is going to go down. >> correct. >> you're on the opposite side of the trade. >> no, the same side. i bought costco and bought it for -- i bought it with a kicker of the special dividend. but i'm tired of riding this thing out because as dan said, usually when you see the special dividends play out, they get sold off, they sell them off and then they hit a bottom here and you could always buy it back. for me, i locked in my profit, i didn't wait for that quote unquote special dividend and now i'm still in the money, i made my money and i don't have to be a hoper. >> what's going to happen to the rest of the market? what's going to happen when they go x? >> whole foods is one that just has bad news. this is one i want to pick on again. >> yeah, but really quick, wynn did the same thing, bottomed out and back up. you can make some money there. i'm still holding that one. i'm holding that one. i bought that. >> different segment. >> sorry. i apologize. >> all right. well, we mentioned the flood of special dividends, costco is one

of 163 companies issuing a special accelerated dividend, special or accelerated dividend. earlier today we asked you to tell us whether you're buying the special dividend stocks. seema joins us with what you have tweeted. >> that's right. acceleration valued at $129 million. out of the 20 largest companies that have announced special or accelerated dividend program, 16 or flat or down in negative territory from their announcement date. so how do you trade these stocks? market guy is selling the stock right after the announcement and will revisit the stock after the dividend is paid out. another reoccurring theme on twitter is trying to bet on the next firm to join the special dividend bandwagon. paul has his eyes on tech and wants to know from the traders with oracle announcing its accelerated dividend program. will other tech titans like apple, microsoft, cisco or even intel be next? all these tech titans have a lot

of cash on their books. apple sitting on $121 billion, cisco and google around $45 billion. will any of these join the race? >> i think the key question here is how much of the stock is held by insiders of some sort who can benefit by paying out a special dividend. that's been a key factor in terms of these screens floating around, screens of potential dividend payers. >> we know buffett's not going to do it. >> yeah. >> because of the buffett rule. so he can't do it. but i do think gates could do it. gates and balmer are two of the largest shareholders at microsoft. rather than the $40 billion, another $20 billion offshore. i like that one. >> what you want to do, once it's announced, you want to buy the stock, write it up and sell the day before and then you don't have to deal with that collapse the next day. >> the impact on the market will be interesting this december. thanks so much. stay tuned.

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